01/30/2012

Humans have intuitively used plants or herbal medicine in healing for thousands of years. Western medicine’s healthcare system and use of prescription drugs or pharmaceuticals is based on the foundation of medicinal plants and even medications prescribed by physicians to fight addiction, pain, and eating disorder symptoms have a basis in herbal medicine. In fact, the majority of drug families (categories) were discovered and derived from the plant kingdom. According to the World Health Organization, one quarter of all prescription drugs are currently still derived from plants: herbs, shrubs, or trees. Even more remarkable, 121 prescription drugs are derived from just 90 plant species.

Herbs work to combat the consequences of disease and eating disorder symptoms by the effect of their chemical components; in essentially the same way as pharmaceuticals. Both generate biological activity and produce effects in similar ways on the body. However, herbs—possessing naturally occurring chemicals and being still in their natural state—are processed much differently by the human body without the toxic residue left by synthetic (man-made) prescription drugs. Mental eating disorder symptoms like depression and physical manifestations like sickness can be healed with herbal medicines.

Herbal medicine has been shown to be effective in naturally treating countless ailments, such as anxiety and eating disorder symptoms, although there is far less research on herbal remedies as compared to their prescription drug counterparts because natural herbs cannot be patented. For example, one of the most well known herbs is Echinacea--a Native American herb—used to stimulate the immune system, in addition to other healing benefits. Herbs are also powerful agents in assisting the body’s natural detoxification processes, which is important when treating addictions or eating disorder symptoms. Herbal medicine will be utilized in conjunction with various other treatment components in restoring balance to the body/mind system.

The practice of yoga is one of the most effective alternative pain management strategies available. Dating back more than 5,000 years, yoga unites mind, body, and spirit using breathing exercises, stretches, postures, and meditation. Yoga postures are far more than just a series of physical positions; they also mental awareness and spiritual development. Alternative pain management uses this growth to address the physical manifestations of unease.

Our posture is the outer form of our inner attitude. The body is a reflection of the mind—physical tension can be caused by physical activities as well as mental stress. Yoga offers a way to positively affect the mind and restore the body's original wholeness through physical movement and relaxation. It is not primarily concerned with the position. You don't strain or force yourself into a pose.

Yoga provides physical benefits as well - stretching and strengthening the major muscle groups as well as the deeper postural muscles. Flexibility, joint and spinal mobility, proper functioning of internal organs, and overall health can all be improved as a result of continued practice. Yoga is an ideal alternative pain management strategy because this mobility helps to alleviate the tension that can cause chronic pain.

Yet yoga also develops awareness and encourages us to pay attention to the core of our being, not just from the surface. In yoga the goal is to be conscious of each breath, muscle, movement, and posture. You focus your full attention on what you are doing and how you are doing it. Fostering intentional awareness during yoga is designed to eventually lead to greater consciousness in all areas of your life.

Becoming more aware of physical tension and mental or emotional stress is a huge step in personal development. Through practice and awareness, yoga helps develop a deeper connection with self, balance the body's energy centers for optimum health while enhancing strength, flexibility, and relaxation.

Most successful programs that promote wellness, such as addiction or anorexia recovery, utilize therapies that treat the spirit and the mind as well as the body.

T'ai Chi

T'ai Chi is an ancient Chinese practice that is actually a powerful blend of self-discipline, self-defense and self-healing. It involves slow, graceful movements which performed together constitute a "form." T'ai Chi is known as a soft style martial art and is practice with as complete a "softness" or muscular relaxation as possible.

Throughout the fluid sequence of movements, there is constant emphasize on balance, a straight spine, relaxed breathing, a quite mind, and a natural range of motion. Deep breathing from the diaphragm, as opposed to shallow chest breathing, is a key element of T'ai Chi as one learns to coordinate breathing with each movement. Constant focus is maintained on one's dantian - an area in the lower abdomen just beneath the navel - which is the body's center of gravity. All aspects of oneself must remain centered and balanced.

T'ai Chi has shown innumerable benefits for such treatment programs as addiction relief or anorexia recovery. It teaches awareness of one's own balance and what affects it both internally and externally. It cultivates an awareness of change; both in personal transformation as well as maintaining integrity and balance amidst external changes.

In the practice of T'ai Chi and metaphorically in life, it is necessary to understand the consequences of changing appropriately, changing inappropriately and not changing at all in response to external stimuli. T'ai Chi promotes flexibility, balance, and harmony by improving the flow of internal energy (or qi) throughout the body. The calming, meditative aspect of T'ai Chi promotes an inner relaxation and harmony seen as necessary to maintain optimum health.

The ancient practice of meditation has extensive benefits for healing and it can be an important supplement to successful addiction recovery and anorexia/bulimia treatment. Meditation techniques are non-religious and do not require any specific beliefs or special clothes and does not necessitate the adoption of a particular lifestyle. Because it does not require effort but rather encourages effortlessness, it can be a powerful tool for providing the relaxation needed for effective psychological therapy and anorexia/bulimia treatment.

To practice meditation, whether daily in your own home or in a clinical setting like anorexia or bulimia treatment, all you have to do is be present or focus on what you are doing in the current moment. Meditation supplies your entire body/mind/spirit system with an extremely deep state of rest and relaxation, which is much deeper than is possible by any other means. Meanwhile the truly profound underlying benefits occur naturally.

The results from nearly 40 years of well-documented scientific research studies and thousands of years of Eastern practice validate the amazing benefits of meditation. One study proved that meditation can improve immune function and produce significant increases in left-sided anterior brain activity, which is associated with positive emotional states. This positivity has profound implications in anorexia and bulimia treatment and addiction therapy. Other research findings include:

One component of holistic therapy essential to successful relief at a pain management clinic is Chi Kung (Qi Gung).

Chi Kung is the ancient Chinese practice for health, therapy, and longevity thought to balance the one's life force and promote healing. It is a self-healing art that combines movement, relaxation, mind-body integration, breathing, and meditation. "Chi" means vital energy of the body, and "Kung" means the skill of working with, or cultivating, self-discipline and achievement. Psychotherapists and pain management clinicians alike find that this sense of self makes recovery more effective.

The emphasis is on complete relaxation, conscious breath control, balance, and maintaining present moment focus while moving through a series of slow, graceful, rhythmical postures. During the practice of Chi Kung, one develops awareness of chi sensations (energy) in their body and uses their mind to guide the chi. Chi Kung promotes health and vitality by stimulating and balancing the flow of chi throughout the body.

Biofeedback is a mind-body technique in which a practitioner uses a special monitoring machine to teach people how to control bodily functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, and muscle tension, in order to improve their health and well-being and alleviate emotional trauma. It gives instant information feedback about the body's relaxation/tension level and gives both the patient and the therapist invaluable information regarding levels of physical and emotional trauma.

Biofeedback offers a direct scientific perspective of the mind-body connection. People begin to experientially realize the profound affect that their mind has on their body and the way they "feel". Patients suffering from everything from addictions to physical pain to emotional trauma begin to realize that they can psychologically (mentally) learn to control their physiology (body). This is a very liberating and powerful epiphany, as well as an invaluable tool in a variety of health treatment modalities including physical pain and emotional trauma.

There are many forms of alternative pain management that transcend simply medicating the problem. Effective alternative pain management techniques like music therapy have been around for hundreds of years and have provided holistic relief for thousands of suffering people.

The music therapy experience at Casa Palmera can be a fun, inspiring, safe vehicle to address goals such as emotional release, self-expression, body-awareness, group cohesiveness, relaxation/pain management, and creative self-exploration. Emotional well-being is an important component of successful alternative pain management strategies, and music therapy contributes to restoring optimal well-being by using music to address these and other non-musical goals. Music Therapy sessions in a group setting include active music making (singing, drumming), live music listening with relaxation, song writing/lyric analysis, and creative music arts.

Music is a non-invasive, non-threatening tool that has the power to go deep into the psyche and this ability to transcend superficialities makes it an essential tool for alternative pain management. Music therapy sessions at Casa Palmera provide a variety of techniques that incorporate sensory stimulation to facilitate the mind-body connection - leading to awareness and a reconnection to the body's sensations.

Playing instruments as a form of expression is used to create a unique non-verbal outlet for emotional release. Drumming is a way to release physical and emotional tension in a healthy manner, and to incorporate the mind-body connection. This alleviation of tension is particularly helpful when used in conjunction with alternative pain management therapies.

Some people may develop their musical skills during treatment or while undergoing alternative pain management, but musical talent or inclination does not matter. Casa Palmera provides Certified Music Therapists with specialized training to ensure the most positive interventions and outcomes throughout this unique treatment process. These sessions provide achievable resources and tools for guests to use post treatment.

Drum therapy is an ancient and profound way to restore the vibrational integrity of the body/mind/spirit system and has exceptional benefits in trauma therapy. The rich sound waves produced by the drum transmit their energy to the drummer and the calming effect produced by this wave of energy can be a powerful tool for relaxation, making it easier to cultivate awareness during acute or chronic trauma therapy.

When humans drum, our bodies, brainwaves, and spiritual energy centers begin to vibrate in a harmonious response and we are better equipped to handle the intense emotionality and deeply affective feelings that can be brought to the surface during trauma therapy. Forming new harmonic alignments and becoming one with a universal life force is an extraordinarily effective way to alleviate the toxic emotions produced in addiction help, chronic pain management, or other form of trauma therapy.

Although the ancients have known for thousands of years the benefits of music in psychic healing and trauma therapy, even science is now verifying the therapeutic effects of drumming. A recent medical research study indicates that drumming boosts the immune system dramatically after just one drumming session. Other studies have demonstrated the calming, focusing, and healing effects of drumming on Alzheimer's patients, autistic children, emotionally disturbed teens, substance abusers, trauma therapy patients, and prison and homeless populations. Study results demonstrate that drumming is a valuable treatment for stress, fatigue, anxiety, hypertension, headaches, asthma, chronic pain, arthritis, and sleep and emotional disorders.

When it comes to recovery – from everything to chronic pain relief to bulimia nervosa treatment, body centered therapies like dancing can bring important comfort. Dancing can be a very energizing and liberating experience, but only after certain psychological barriers are crossed does one gain the physical and emotional benefits. In order to dance freely, one must break free from the limitations of fear, apprehension, lack of confidence, and repression. This psychological release has profound benefits for addiction recovery and bulimia nervosa treatment.

Dance therapy can be an amazing tool for helping people "let go" – whether they are in need of depression relief or anorexia or bulimia nervosa treatment. The symbolism is actually a powerful relationship between the physical release and fluidity on the dance floor and the psychological/emotional liberation from one's past. Beyond the tremendous therapeutic benefits of Dance Therapy, it can be very fun and help bring out the "kid" in all of us.

A disturbance of body image has long been recognized as a clinical feature of central importance in both, anorexia nervosa and bulimia. A distortion of body image and a misperception regarding body size and body boundaries, accompanied by decreased self esteem is characteristic for those suffering from Eating Disorders. Furthermore these disorders are often compounded by difficulties in identifying feeling states, or by an individual’s efforts to disassociate from bodily sensations and the attendant loss of body functions.

Since the earliest and most direct contact a human can make with itself as a source of experience is through the body, our body itself is a meaningful source of memory, response and learning. Images, postures and sound often condense, conserve and represent issues and past experiences of ourselves.

Body Image Therapy addresses the body directly, utilizing movement action and interaction to create a more realistic and positive body image and self perception. Through a variety of techniques participants learn to recognize and access sensations in their bodies as valuable signals and cues of emotional states. By encouraging individuals to embody and explore relevant issues and feeling states via movement, imagery, music, theater, art and play they learn to develop trust, body awareness and ultimately a more positive body image. We learn to tolerate and express our emotions in more constructive ways and consequently develop meaningful interpersonal relations.

The pleasurable spontaneity of Body Image Therapy provides a wonderful opportunity to experience our body as a source of meaningful and rich satisfaction, rather than a source of unremitting problems. Thus we are able to promote changes in our feelings, cognition, physical functioning and behavior.